ABSTRACT
This paper reports a longitudinal case study of developing, implementing, and evaluating group work in a Chinese school in Macau, and instances the salience of Chinese cultural dimensions of schools, teachers, and students in understanding and developing group work in the Chinese school in question. It analyses group work in a case study school and finds that challenges in developing group work in the school are similar to those reported in non-Chinese schools, whilst, at the same time, embracing key aspects of Chinese culture. Group work here challenges one-sided interpretations of “the Chinese learner” and embraces both individualism and collectivism, collaboration and competition, and academic priorities and social priorities. Several elements of Chinese culture, pedagogical culture, and everyday contexts combine compatibly in understanding group work in this Chinese school.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 In December 2020, the Macau SAR opened a new Patriotic Education Base, a feature of which is a substantial section on Confucian thought.
2 The present paper does not engage these, as they are beyond its scope.
3 The authors are grateful to an anonymous reviewer of the present article for drawing attention to this.
4 The authors are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this observation. However, given the size of this topic, it is beyond the scope of the present paper. The present paper acknowledges such differences and notes that they might not be mutually exclusive, and the authors retain this double pedigree in melding philosophical and sociocultural traditions in using the quotations from these two works. S. Chan (Citation1999) notes the “influential power of Chinese cultural values and how Chinese learning styles have been shaped over centuries of Confucian philosophy as well as its permeability across different generations of Chinese world-wide” (p. 295) and “the main influence on Chinese learning actually came from Confucius” (p. 297), which is still “a critical element” in “modern Chinese society” (p. 298; see also C. Tan, Citation2015, Citation2017b).
5 C. Tan (Citation2015) identifies three elements of teaching in Chinese schools: students’ respect for the teacher, students’ attention and discipline in class, and the importance attached to repetition and practice (p. 205).
7 For example: Bond and Huang (Citation1986), K. W. Chan (Citation2014), Flowerdew (Citation1998), Fung (Citation2014), Fung and Liang (Citation2019), D. Li (Citation2014), Liu and Feng (Citation2015), Nguyen et al. (Citation2006), Nisbett (Citation2003), Su (Citation2011), C. Tan (Citation2017a, Citation2017b), C. Tang (Citation1996), Watkins and Biggs (Citation1996), Winter (Citation1996), Yuen et al. (Citation2017).
8 Whether Clarke’s (Citation2010) analysis is correct is an open question; admitting weakness may be simply, for example, because students want to avoid any trouble or involvement.
9 Round 2 included students and teachers from Round 1 plus students and teachers new to the project, as the project increasingly involved more age groups, teachers, and subjects.
10 The risk of losing face is not exclusive to the Chinese/Confucian significance accorded to face: Being shy to speak out is universal and not always due to cultural reasons (e.g., it is common in young children and can be rooted in personality and psychological factors). The present study only comments on the presence of this factor, not on cultural causality, though the fact that students of all ages commented on this was interesting, and future studies could investigate possible cultural causality here.
11 Teachers expressed concern that their own inexperience in group work and their roles in it would be exposed and that this would undermine their credibility, authority, and face.
12 The pass/fail system in the school, locally, regionally, and nationally, meant that, often, students who failed had to repeat a year. In some of the Chinese schools in Macau, students who fail a second time are expelled (Morrison & Ieong, Citation2007). Macau has a history of high incidence of grade repetition: The 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study reported that 40% of Macau students had repeated a grade at least once (Zhou & Wong, Citation2017), amongst the highest of the 65 participating countries. This was attributed to the high incidence of private schools and lack of effective state governance (Y.-L. Wong, Citation2013). The problem continued in the 2012 PISA study, attributed to insufficient opportunities to learn, students’ inadequate self-regulation, and inappropriate teacher guidance and management (Sit et al., Citation2015).
13 Many students commented that group work improved their performance; however, this was not borne out by, for example, their marks, though counterfactual evidence was limited. This paper does not comment on the academic standards of the school.
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Notes on contributors
Keith Morrison
Keith Morrison is Vice-rector for Academic Affairs at the University of Saint Joseph in Macao. He has worked in higher education in Macao since 2000; formerly he was at the University of Durham, UK. He is the author/co-author of 18 academic books on education.
Alejandro Salcedo Garcia
Alejandro Salcedo Garcia is Administrator at the University of Saint Joseph, Macao. He has been a school principal and Research Coordinator for the Bishop Domingos Lam Centre for Research in Education at the University of Saint Joseph, Macao.
Sin Teng Wong
Sin Teng Wong gained her first degree in anthropology, and Master’s degrees in the History of Art and in Applied Translation. She has been the Senior Research Assistant for an education project and is currently teaching in Macao.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5205-4639
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